I was 16 years old working at the Lido Golf Centre ,graphite shafts were just coming on to the market . Moe and I had known each other for 4 years at that time , he liked and trusted me , he walked into the shop and asked me if I had time to watch him hit some balls , if Moe wanted to hit balls for you ,you dropped everything and said yes . We went out to the 17th tee a straight away par four ,bunker down the left about 240 and a driving range net all down the right with a row of bushes on the fairway side of the net .

He pulled out 2 drivers ,his 5 degree wooden head on a stick and a new graphite shafted wood wood .

He said he wanted my help in deciding which one he should use, he first hit 5 balls with his piece of wood on a stick and then 5 with the new graphite club . 17 was a little up hill off the tee down hill from about 200 into the green ,from the tee we could not see the balls land or finish. Now remember Moehad a photographic memory he didn't forget anything . As we reach the crest of the fairway I start to see the balls 5 in a tight little pile just right of the left hand fairway bunker at 240 then there was another pile of 4 balls 15 yards further on the same line , he hit 10 balls , one went to the right , Moenever acknowledged that shot . Never looked in that direction ,never mentioned it .

So he says ,what do you think ,which club should I use . Well , I jump right in and say Moe you hit the graphite 15 yards further you have to go with that . He paused 2 seconds and then said , oh no , no ,can't do that , wouldn't know how to play ,wouldn't know how to play . That was the end of that conversation . Moe knew how far he hit everything ,golf in the early 70 s was not as much about distance as it is today . Moe put accuracy and distance control ahead of distance for the want of distance .

This is my personal opinion . The only reason I would give Tiger any chance to do well in the future in golf is because he is Tiger .

Golf is far more than a good swing, SO MUCH is governed by your golf and or personal confidence level, Tigers confidence got rocked the night he hit the fire hydrant .

We love to talk golf swing ,we want to believe in magic ,wouldn't it be special if Tiger found some secret we could all tap into , he is still talking about ballistic speed and working out getting stronger .

Here is what I hope you start to hear: Tiger to take the stress off his back has realized he needs to start using his hands more effectively and stop trying to propel the ball with body contortions .

I fear we are going to watch one of the greatest to ever play swing tentatively out of fear of doing some series damage to his back that will have an effect far greater than just golf .

The guy is a true champ and I doubt he has it in him to back down . That could prove to be physically costly ..

So many putters to choose from, and it seems that some of them include more science than the space shuttle. Somehow I think the player moving the putter has something to do with the outcome, or at least until Tesla perfects the self-steering car.

In general, I think golfers want to improve their putting but only up to a certain point. There don’t seem to be many golfers willing to put in the time, and those who are willing to put in the time are putting in poorly spent time.

I believe that over the next few years you’re going to see a revolution in teaching. It’s not going to be new or more technology, but more along the lines of developing your senses through curiosity and guided experimentation.

We will get away from the thinking that to achieve you need to beat more golf balls and stand for hours trying to produce and reproduce the same action over and over again.

Imagine this concept...the ball goes in the hole because of what you did. It wasn’t the putter, it was YOU. How cool is that!

I keep hearing lately about this new finding that it takes 10,000 hours to master an art form, musical instrument, martial arts or Golf.
I'm not totally sure about the other disciplines, but as far as Golf is concerned, I wonder what the time frame would be if we could eliminate all those hours wasted working on the wrong information.

I think Golf data collectors work on the premise that golfers know what to do but they just cant do it.

We talk about reps. The only reason why I could see reps being important would be so that you could see the wanted result enough times to believe you can do it. Problem with that thinking is you are also seeing the bad reps too, and you don't know what caused what.

Both the time frame and the number of reps could be dramatically decreased if a player knew what they were doing and why the ball is doing what its doing.

I’ve been playing the game for 50 years and teaching it for 40 + years.

The crazy thing about this game is that it’s entirely possible on Day One to hit a golf shot as good as anyone has ever hit one. Therefore, it would be reasonable to think that within only weeks or months you could become a heck of a player. The interesting thing, though, is there are centuries of evidence to suggest you would be wrong. But we all keep falling for the same trap. We don’t learn from history and continue to believe that the fix lies in the next swing. This game is ruthless and will eat away at your confidence and your time... tic, tic, tic.

Years ago, young people would seek out mentors in hopes that the older person’s learned successes and especially their failures would help the apprentice accelerate their learning curve.

Now a days this doesn’t seem like the cool thing to do. I watch young golfers making the same mistakes I did as they tell me what they are working on. I know it won’t work and I try to warn them, but they look at me like I have three eyes, like golf was invented yesterday and that everything they are doing and trying is new.

Honestly, decades ago the teaching and learning of golf was solved as much as it’s going to get. We were on the right track and then somewhere in the '60s we moved away from that right track and got on to things that are not going to make us better.

We refuse to believe that the answers lie in improving the human. This means that by creating a higher sense of awareness through our hands and feet we can then create the ability to hit “balance conditions" that are not normal for a human to be comfortable with. Sounds like ballet, karate, boxing or tumbling.

The revolution has already started but it will take decades to filter down to the masses. What I am talking about is happening now, the masses don’t want to hear this and there will be many teachers who will tell the masses what the masses want to hear.

The fascinating thing is that what I am talking about is far more fun to learn than the way the masses now go about it.

Here is your clue to knowing if you’re on the right track. Think about how we humans are structured and put together – we are designed to learn. If the information you’re getting is not about how to move your hands and how to control your weight through your feet, then I am suggesting something is wrong. There is a reason why so many neuroreceptors reside in your hands and feet.

Unfortunately, you have so much contradictory information coming at you that you don’t know what or who to believe.

I hope you take a moment to look at my site at www.evershedgolf.com. On the homepage you can find my 12-minute video outlining my thoughts and ideas on how you should go about the learning process.

Please try to find flaws, try to find contradictions and listen in with pure skepticism. If what I say does not make sense, you can cross me off your list of “Golf Pros to listen to”.

If quick tips are what you’re looking for you won’t like my site. If an organized process is what you want, then this is the site for you.

It wasn’t too long ago when it was easy to write golf tips and/or articles about golf. Now, not so much.

With the popularity of online information which includes Facebook and other apps, the masses are now able to access an overabundance of information flying around at warp speed. Unfortunately, that information does not always come from the most reliable sources, and those reading the information have no clue about the writer and whether he or she has any real credentials to be delivering the information.

We really need a site we can go to that carefully screens those who are giving the lessons. It should be required that credentials are listed along with a short bio on their accomplishments.

Outrageous Golf Instruction. In the desire to stand out, the ones who try to make a living by teaching golf feel they need to keep making more and more outrageous claims. In doing so, golfers are becoming immune to anything that is said by Golf Professionals.

How to fix it. I really don’t know how to fix it. Here is what I am personally going to do, though. I am going to ask you to go to my site www.evershedgolf.com and watch my opening video on the homepage.

While you are watching my video, keep in mind that what I am saying could be totally wrong. Try to find contradictions, and if what I am saying does not make total sense, you can eliminate one golf pro from your list.

Warning. I am not about quick tips. If you’re not the kind of person who enjoys an organized approach, then my site is not for you.

I have been trying to come up with a blog for a week now. Lately it’s been difficult, the reason being that I can go on the internet and anything you want to find out about golf is right there in front of you.

I look in amazement at the amount of golf instruction available. I watch and read so many different articles from so many different golf pros(?) and there are so many different opinions that it makes my head spin.

We keep saying that the golf swing is too complex, when the truth is more likely that it’s just delivered in many different ways.

Maybe what we need is a deciphering website – a site you can go to that has weeded through all the different terminologies and delivery styles and just gives us the boiled down, needed information.

Certainly a culture has developed where individuals and groups are looking deeper into the inner workings of muscle groups and firing orders. We have guys creating new names for what were traditionally accepted motions but are now explained through complex graphs and quantum physics, etc.

We had a nice one hour long video conference call with David Leadbetter. It was great to see and hear his passion for teaching the game. As many of you may be aware, there seems to be an internal fight in the golf teaching world between Old School teachers and the new wave of instructors.

There’s probably no way around this argument. Apparently you’re in one camp or the other, and it seems you’re not allowed to believe middle ground would be best.

I thought Mr. Leadbetter made a great point when he said instinct is being bred out of the new players as well as the teachers. We’ve got all caught up in the numbers, and our players and teachers are losing their ability to think on the fly.

He made the point that the new technology should be seen as a tool to assist. My take is that we’ve started to rely on the tech and are giving away our power as instructors. As well, the players are giving up their power to the machine.

I personally think that the two sides can co-exist nicely: those who believe in tech should go for it; and for those who enjoy Old School and don’t want tech, let them find old guys like me.

I love Old School because I think it is more communication oriented, more hands on and more personable.

High Tech is fun, you get to learn a new language and you get to see yourself in an animated form.

The game of golf has been played for over 700 years and I find it very hard to believe there is anything new. Yes, it’s been repackaged and given new names, but it’s highly unlikely there is anything really “new”. There is new technology, data devices, weight pressure monitors, and training devices. But I am pretty sure that one day they are going to open an ancient pyramid and find the King buried with all his golf training devices.

I had an early TrackMan device 30 years ago, it ran by an overhead light and a Commodore 64 or something like that. And I had an insole that measured your weight pressure 20 years ago and a laser that popped out of a visor to help you keep your head still 15+ years ago. Now in 2015, I go on Facebook and see ads saying these things are brand new and revolutionary finds.

Handicaps have barely budged in 50 years even though golf pros seem to have more science than NASA, so how is it that golfers are not improving as a general rule?

Let me give you my opinion.
It could be golfers are too lazy or cannot afford the time needed to learn the game of golf – although I would suggest we have more time now than we did in the past. It could be the equipment used and course conditions, etc. ( I can guarantee you it’s not that ).

The Reason. We have dumbed down the required information so much that it is now incomplete and it is just wrong information. Furthermore, instead of making the information complete and therefore correct, we bowed to the masses who were screaming to make golf simple. The fact is, it was already as simple as it could be made by 1950, and from then on we made it impossible.

Now we have machines that can tell us every neuron and its firing order and we are still not getting any better. I once read that taking a complex subject and trying to make it simple does not necessarily make it simple because you take out important pieces.

We should have instead learned to make the needed process fun.

The game will start to become more possible when we stop looking for quick tips and rather relax and enjoy the journey.

As far as instruction goes, it is my finding that it is never only just one thing that will help you, it is almost, if not always two things.

I hope you will join my website where I can promise the complete explanations can be found.

The fastest why to fix any golf problem is through correct information, not by how many balls you hit.

Golf may be the greatest game in the world, one of the biggest reasons being that you can call penalties on yourself. The game seems to shun those who would try to cheat it, including those situations when people are playing together. I have been playing golf for almost 50 years and teaching it for 40+ years and I cannot think of a single incident where I got paired up with players who I didn’t like (to any great degree). I am sure unpleasant pairings do happen at times, but much less in this sport than any other. There is something about golf rules that keep the "like to break rules" people away.
Now with that said, WHAT THE HECK is going on in the world of golf instruction!?

I go on Facebook and read about all these incredible claims of reduced scores and adding yardages to your drives.

If you’re a golf instructor and you can’t take 10 shots off the player’s next game or add 20-30 yards to his next tee shot, you’re going to go broke. I wrote a blog about this a couple of weeks ago entitled "The Golf Pro That Cried Wolf".

I teach a class two days a week here at Core Golf Orlando. One day the class is theory, the next day is performance. This past Monday the class was on putting. What I really enjoy is the feedback from the mostly young students who attend, ages 20 to 30.

The first thing I need is their attention. The class is probably getting better because they never know what I am going to say next. I seldom follow the considered norm of conventional golf structure, and apparently, I have very different views on how we should go about improving.

#1 - I think we rely too much on drills and the belief that improvement is all about repetition and time spent in the normal golf-ish kind of way.

This week I led off with having a few of the students open their laptops and go to the stats section in pgatour.com. I told them that we are falling too much in the direction of letting new machines and equipment take control of our learning, how we instead need to rely more on our knowledge in order to lower our scores.

We discussed what putters were like in the 90s and what they are like now. We talked about how perfectly balanced they are and the wonderful tooling that goes into the making of a modern and very expensive putter. We also talked about how well manicured the putting surfaces are today versus what they were 25 years ago.

I then asked the students with their laptops opened to the stats page, to go to the putting average in 1990- 1.747 and in 2015- 1.699.

In over 25 years the putting average has moved less than 0.5 of a shot. Given the quality of the putting surfaces, the advanced tooling of putters, the countless putting training tools and the fairly new green reading gurus, I find 0.5 of a shot shockingly low.

I just got back from the Champions Tour event in NC. It was great to see up close many of the players I grew up watching on TV.

I was working with and caddying for Dr. Gil Morgan, now 68 years young and a true gentleman. Gil has won 25 times on the Champions Tour – the only players to have more wins are Hale Irwin and Lee Trevino. Gil also has 27 second place finishes and an astounding 160+ top 10s.

The first day we started off great with 32 on the front 9, then ran into a couple of wayward tee balls and ended up 38 on the back 9. Day 2 was cold and raining, Gil reinjured his hand and had trouble really committing to impact with any shot hit from the rough and also, to a degree, off the wet turf. Day 3 was much warmer and the sunshine resulted in much better ball striking but not much was happening on the greens.

My Overview.
Anyone who thinks these guys are playing short easy golf courses are totally off the mark. Pins are tucked, fairways are soft and the greens are fast. I was very impressed with the talent of these men.

They all seem younger and more fit than you see on TV. We got paired with Brian Henninger and Gary Hallberg on day 1, Joey Sindilar and Brad Faxon on day 2 and Tom Kite, Dick Mast on day 3. They were all fine gentleman.

I fired myself as a caddie, its harder than it looks. I will stay with the instructor moniker.

First of all, I very much question if the new instruction is better than the old. And usually I just get personal attacks back, there are seldom if any intelligent responses. It just always seems to go straight to a personal attack and to hell with stats.

It was suggested that if the new age players went back to the 6400 yard courses their stats would be better than that of the old guys.

A couple of questions:

#1. How would the stats of the young guys change if they played from 6400 yards with the old ball, old equipment and no access to all the new data devices?

#2. If we gave the old guys all the new equipment and 6400 yards, how would that change their stats?

My point. Are we sure that what we are now doing is better?

I think there is a big difference between information and applied knowledge.

I think this a fair comparison, and I’d love to hear if you can think of a better way to compare.

I guess we can only relate to what we have experienced. I am continually amazed at people like Zuckerberg, Walt Disney, Bill Gates, guys who had huge visions and were able to make them happen. They must have had something going on inside that is different than the rest of us.

I once had the great pleasure of being an acquaintance of one of the world’s richest men, he was an awesome cool guy, and he took me out for ice cream one night (I paid). This man told me about how when he was a young man he put together a 40-year plan to achieve his goal. I can’t even begin to fathom that. But maybe the reason I haven’t achieved my goal is that I just wished it, I didn’t plan it.

Golf. I definitely have an idea of how I would go about becoming a world class player if I were young again. From what I see, though, the vision and idea I have does not match up to how young people who want this same goal are conducting their daily lives.

This is probably why so few will actually make it. Some have an exterior understanding – they get up and go to the gym, go work on their drills and their short game, etc.

But this is not what I am envisioning. There are people who appear to have done the above, but along the way– mostly and probably by a fluke – developed a deeper understanding of what they need to know. On the surface it looks like they put in the same day as those that do not make it, but something different happened.

I wish more of these dreamers would go about achieving by taking the time to seek out a mentor and to study why so many never made it.

Don’t just set goals, make yourself explain how you are going to obtain them.

My opinion. There’s too much fluff and not enough substance. If people fail, I want them to fail because of lack of talent, not because of lack of guidance.

Ouch! Give them what they want, not what they need. I think this is what golf instruction has morphed into. Appease the masses, tell them what they want to hear.

Before blogging came out I used to write articles for golf magazines. When I first started I thought it was so cool that I was able to reach out to thousands of golfers at a time, grow my business and get my message out there. I thought the magazine picked me because so many knew of me and how well respected I was. SILLY ME, the truth was while a lot did know who I was, the magazine cared very little for what I had to say, they only wanted readership (eye balls). I would set off to write an article, let’s say on creating more club head speed and the article would be 3000 words. I would submit it and the editor would call me back and say, “We only have room for 300 words, we need to fit an ad on the same page.” I would say that speed cannot be explained correctly in 300 words. He’d respond, "If you won’t do it I will find someone who will.” Ouch!

That’s the way golf is heading. The way it is directly presented correlates to what the masses want, which in general is a free miracle. LOL. We have gotten away from what the truth is and what it is to love the procedure.

I love this game and all it should stand for and I would like to think that all will enjoy my approach, but I know that is a naïve expectation. The best I can do is present my view and hope to gather like-minded learners.

I hope you join in on my site and learn to navigate its depth of understandings.

My job is to present the correct information in an organized manner. Your job is to enjoy the process.

There are so many opinions about golf these days that it’s easy to get messed up.

I read comments on Facebook about how the best players do not think about mechanics when they play. That is NOT TRUE. What really happens with the best player, and also even when you yourself are playing your best, is that mechanical thinking is definitely there – it’s just that this time it’s a good mechanical thought and it flows through your mind effortlessly, and therefore you do not recognize it as a bad thing. However, when things are going bad, we immediately blame it on our mechanical thinking even when mechanics may have had nothing to do with it.

We seem to have two major trains of thought: #1 - The guys who want to tell you to just think of the target and swing without thought, and #2 - The guys who love mechanics, but we just can’t seem to buy into that it’s a combination of both. I don't care how positive you think, if your swing mechanics are poor, the ball is going poorly. However, if your mechanics are good but you have a bad mindset, the ball can still go pretty good.

Golfers, if you are truly looking to improve, you need to fall in love with the procedures of improving both mentally and physically. Regarding mechanics, I am always telling golfers that the only mechanics they need to fear are the wrong ones. It is beyond me how a golfer can have a great mindset when they keep missing the planet with their golf shots! Let’s be honest, those who are really into golf understand this, but those who don't want to or cannot put in the time will always find a “reason” for why they are not that good.

My Point. I believe good players in general have a mechanical thought going on when they are playing their best, they just may not recognize it as a mechanical thought because it is comfortable and because it has been pounded into us that mechanics are ALL BAD.

Hey, if all you had to do is think about the target, how hard would that be!?

As a golf instructor for the last 40 years, I have seen and heard just about everything that could be said on the learning and teaching of the golf swing.
I am a big fan of many of the old time instructors: Percy Boomer, Earnest Jones, Homer Kelley, Jim Flick, Harvey Pennick and others. Looking back you see the lack of tech they had to work with and the terrible golf equipment, the bad golf balls, bad course conditions, the kids who didn’t train from birth, the lack of money to play (thereby, golf didn’t attract the best athletes). They had no first tee programs, no real physical conditioning programs, sports psychologists, laser yardage indicators, no real professional caddies and so on. You have to wonder how they produced players that had scoring averages that match many of today’s players.

Today’s guys have all the technology. They use hi-speed cameras, ball spin data and calculations coming out of every -----.

As a guy who loves this game and loves communicating with those wanting to learn – those who really want to learn and don’t just pretend they want to learn – I look at what is happening in today’s world of golf and just want to cry.

Everywhere you look there are instructors willing to make outrageous claims on the successes they get. I look through Facebook and can’t find a single golf lesson failure. Guys are proclaiming how they’re knocking 10 shots off student’s games in minutes and adding 30 yards to drives the very next swing. The problem is, the stats are just not backing up the claims. We have become a society where the exception has become the rule.

My feeling is that golfers are becoming immune to all the hype and claims and way too much time and energy goes into hyping up the latest infomercial. All this while not enough energy goes into doing things that will actually improve the player.

How would my approach work as an infomercial? Golf is a very hard game to get good at, it takes gathering the correct information and then much time at skill development. For this you need patience, dedication, a clear plan and time to train. I don't think this would be a big seller.

However, this is exactly the path I want to take. I want to attract those who enjoy procedure, communication and dedication. Please do not misinterpret what I am saying here. It is absolutely my belief that this is the fastest and best way to achieve long term ownership of your game.

I hope you’ll read through my material, watch my clips, and see if my style is the right one for you.

The fastest way is to look into my ebook where you’ll quickly be able to tell if you enjoy my approach.

OK, I’m older and I get that, but are any of you like me in that you just don't get the philosophy or mentality of these new times we live in? Here is what I see: in the new “ME" society it is no longer necessary to actually achieve something, instead just go on Facebook and tell everyone of your successes, forget to mention your non-successes and to hell with your average.
I have yet to find a golf instructor on Facebook who does not profess to work miracles. I am wondering if the younger generation has ever heard the story of the “Boy That Cried Wolf”.

We are rapidly approaching the point were golfers will not take lessons unless you can promise to add 50 yards to their next drive or take 20 shots off their next round of golf.

The golf world is crying out for simple golf instruction and today’s teaching pros are throwing gear effect, spin rates and ground force effects at us. Holy crap, I’ve been teaching this game for 40+ years and I don't recognize golf-talk anymore!

What’s going on? To me, the current instruction seems to be all about science, and somehow this magically makes it superior. The young guys are great at force vectors, gear ratios, and they’re great at numbers and stats. What they don't seem to be very good at is looking at the stats that tell the rest of us golfers that we are barely, if at all, showing any improvement. Every time I post things showing how there is hardly a difference in scoring averages since 1950, how there is no difference in greens and regulation fairways, or how putting averages have not changed since stats started, I get no response.

Now remember, the equipment back then was nowhere near as good as it is today. Our young guys have no memory of how the golf balls curved with the slightest miss-hit, how there were a lot more variations in course conditions, etc., etc., etc.

Here’s my issue. We are creating a generation of tellers and we are losing our teachers. Yes, technology may be okay, but only in the hands of a great teacher. And I guess that needs a definition... Modern/Today teacher = person who can spew forth the most amount of big words in one paragraph. Old school great teacher = a person who can practically teach you to breathe through your ears and all of a sudden you’re hitting the ball better. Sometimes when I read the current stuff I swear these new guys are only trying to impress each other while letting the student be damned.

I truly hope that I am dead wrong in what I’m saying. If someone can show me the evidence that “new is better” I will be all in. Until then, you’re stuck with me doing what I knowworks. HANDS ON INSTRUCTION.